With nearly 52,000 interviews from survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides, the archive of audio-visual testimony assembled and maintained by USC Shoah Foundation is so abundant it would take at least 12 years to watch it from beginning to end. And that’s assuming the footage would be rolling 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When I started my new job here at the Institute, I was struck by this statistic, which adequately conveys the scope of this incredible resource.

I have only known Harry Reicher for three months, and yet today I say goodbye to him as an old friend. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting to meet a devout and practicing Jew the day he first walked into the USC Shoah Foundation office, but Harry’s devotion to his religious life radiated from him the moment he said hello.